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Friday, 27 January 2017

I hope you might find some creative time to yourself over the weekend and have a few spare minutes to do a page for our January city themed challenge. We love the entries we have so far but there is always room for a few more :) - some lovely prizes on offer.

Monday, 23 January 2017

I loved this painting , the black with the pops of vibrant colour,
this is what I tried to recreate with shimmers and texture paste for my
background and of course you need a little pop of gold.

Hi my name is Rikki Graziani and I am
honoured to be asked to be your guest designer this month. I have been
scrapbooking for over 19 years but really got into after my first son was born
in 2002. I have been madly obsessed by scrapbooking for almost half of my life.
I never thought that a hobby that I took up as a teenager would still be
fulfilling as an adult, but I continue to be inspired day after day. My children
Tristan (14), Ethan (12) and Amelia (6)
and I have been trying to make more effort in stepping in front of the camera,
and to DH (Scott) disgust doing the same with him! 2011 marked my first
offer of a place on a design team (LSS), and I am very blessed to be able to
share this craft will all the great people I meet. Scrapping has become not just
a community but almost a sisterhood - a way to share and bond. Let's just say I
get far more from scrapping than beautiful layouts.

I currently design for Kaisercraft, Scrapmatt and Shop
and Crop.

My favourite things are fussy cutting….
I know I can hear people moan now but for me I love even if you have a limited
budget you can make an amazing layout out of a single piece of pp, plus I find
it relaxing to do in front of the tv so it’s ready to go. The next thing I love to
do is layering instant dimension and you once again don’t need a lot or you can,
love the versatility. I also love to do mixed media and love when I can do a
fusion between paper ranges and this style of scrapping.

Sunday, 15 January 2017

Our first inspiration for 2017 is this fantastic painting by Ken Done called Sydney Night.

CRITERIA - A CITY theme

ANNA

Disneyland !! Like a whole city of dreams come true!! I have been inspired of the colors and the whimsical party feeling in the painting. This will be my reminder of always believe in my dreams and to believe in myself.

TONE

I have tried to make a city-scene ).. inspired by the buildings and colours.)

KAREN

The inspiration I have taken from this Ken Done picture is the colours and the stars.

KAT

I was inspired by the Sydney scene and the shapes and colours in the artwork. I made a cover page for an album about the years that I lived in Sydney. I created a photo collage in the shape of the Sydney skyline and added some wood veneer shapes of the iconic landmarks in the painting.

ANGELIKA

This painting reminded me of chalkboard art and that is where I took my inspiration from- I used chalky pastel colours and chalkboard grey elements.

KRIPA(joining us in February)

JANE

Inspired by the idea of viewing the Sydney city skyline from the water and knew I had the perfect photos from a cruise my daughter took to see the Vivid light spectacular from a year or so back. I also knew I wanted to go big so the photo dominated the page and used the colours from the artwork to enhance the photo.

Now it is your turn, we'd love to see your own interpretation ...

Remember we happily accept all forms of paper crafting for your entry including digital and encourage international submissions. All we ask is that you create something new for our challenge and only combine your entry with a sketch challenge. We offer two prizes determined by team vote and one other prize selected purely by random draw - so anyone can be a winner regardless of style or level of experience. You have until 11.55pm on the last day of the month to submit your entry.

Sunday, 8 January 2017

I will be announcing our December winners shortly but first I would like to introduce you to our first Tips, Tricks and Techniques of the new year brought to you this month by team member Kat Gray.

Hi everyone, today I’m sharing some
tips about how I made my project for the January challenge. I was inspired by
the Sydney skyline in the painting and wanted to create a layout that featured
the shape of the skyline.

I started by cutting a
skyline shape and title from a sheet of black cardstock. For this I used my
electronic cutter, but you could also freehand this with a craft knife.

I then used the cut
out background as a stencil and traced the shapes onto a piece of scrap
cardstock.

I printed a series of small photos (from the years I lived in Sydney) and adhered them on the scrap cardstock, being sure to cover the entire traced shape.

For the title I cut
some rectangles of patterned paper (I used colours that matched the artwork)
and placed them over the traced letters.

Before adhering the
background over the top I added some splatters of paint to the background using
acrylic paint in the colours from the painting.

Once the paint had
dried I stuck the background over the top of the scrap cardstock with the
photos and patterned paper.

For embellishments I
added some wood veneers that worked well with the theme. I coloured the wood
veneers using some Versamark ink and coloured embossing powder.

To finish the layout I
added a little bit more paint and some chipboard stickers.I plan to use this layout as the title page for an album about my time in Sydney.

Thanks for stopping by :)

now onto our final winner for 2016. Thank you to everyone who took the time in a really busy month to play along with us. Unfortunately there were insufficient numbers for us to award all the prizes so in the interest of fairness we have done a random draw and our winner is #6 Helen who will receive a gorgeous prize donated by team member Angelika Ushakova.

Congratulations Helen.

Could you please contact me on jjjustjane@bigpond.com with your postal details. You have until the announcement of the winners for next month to do so. Don't forget to grab our winners badge from the sidebar.

Our Creative Team highlight from last month is Sue - She will each receive a little surprise something from me.

Please don't forget to enter this month's ARTastic challenge. All the details are in the left sidebar. Remember you have until the end of the month to submit your entry.

Tuesday, 3 January 2017

Welcome to a brand new year on ARTastic. We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, spent quality time with your family and friends and are ready to get back into some crafty time for yourselves.

We have lots of fun in-store for you here on ARTastic during 2017. Our new creative team will inspire you with their interpretations of our showcased works by amazing Australian artists. We have wonderful prizes to give away each month and of course we will have more amazing tutorials and extra special guests popping by the blog. 2017 is going to be one awesome year!!

Just a little housekeeping before we get started on our first challenge.

During 2017 we will have one main monthly prize pack selected by creative team vote. Due to the excessive cost of international postage this will only be available to Australian and New Zealand based entrants. And because we want to put the ART back into ARTastic, this prize is going to be special - this month featuring amazing products from Tim Holtz.

January Prize

We will also have a prize pack donated each month by one of our team where the winner is selected purely by random draw - so anyone could be a winner, no matter your style or your level of experience. This prize will be available to anyone, no matter your country of residence.

Donated by Kat Gray

Our first inspiration for 2017 is this fantastic painting by Ken Done called Sydney Night.

Ken Done's first solo exhibition was held in Sydney in 1980. Since then, he has held over 50 one-man shows, including major exhibitions in Australia, Europe, Japan, and the USA. His work has been described as the most original style to come out of Australia, and his paintings are held in collections throughout the world.

Working predominantly in oils and acrylic, Done takes inspirations from diverse sources - the ebullience of the sea and sky, the transcendent emotions of a quiet garden, aboriginal art, Japanese poetry, the urban shout of Sydney, where he makes his home - but the sensibility that underlies his work is uniquely his own. The Ken Done Gallery was opened in May of 1994, in the magnificent heritage Australian Steam Navigation Building in Sydney's historic Rocks area. It holds the most extensive collection of Ken Done's works on canvas, works on paper, signed limited edition prints, and posters.

And now some inspiration from the first of our team ...

ELAINE

My son went on a digital media excursion to our state's capital city, Perth. His teacher took these photos of him and combined them to make one photo. I created a graffiti looking background with stamps, texture paint and a bit of watercolour. The night sky in the inspiration painting, drew me to using black as my main colour with a bit of colour added in.

TRACEY

I took the inspiration for the photo from the paintings subject matter and the background from the bright abstract style of the painting.

JUDY

I was inspired by the bright vibrant colours against the black background as well as the city of Sydney theme.

TANYA

The city buildings and the black and blue tones are what have inspired me to do my layout.

HELENE

A city theme with a difference ...

EVELYN

It´s a big dream of me to visit New York one day. May be in 2017? I was inspired by the dark background with the bold colors on top. I also tried to create a background in street art style. I hope you like it!

MARIA

My city is Saint-Petersburg in Russia. I like it very much! It inspires me. It provided beautiful scenes and backgrounds for many photos I've combined in an 8x8" album called "One city on a map. Saint Petersburg".

Over to you ......

Please upload the DIRECT link to your actual entry with the link tool on the LEFT by 11.55pm on January 31st, 2017. We'd love to see yournewpaper, digital, mixed media or off the page entries. Why not try doing a pocket page spread? Please no back-dated submissions.

Please note:- You may combine our challenge with a sketch challenge only - no other combining will be accepted. Please include our inspirational picture and challenge details on your blog post as well as providing a link back to us at ARTastic. You may enter more than once in any month as long as each submission is with a different creation. International entries are very welcome.

Please call past on the 8th for our announcement of the December winners and our first ARTastic Tips, Tricks and Techniques for 2017.

February random draw prize

2nd random draw prize

JANUARY inspiration is Beach Scene by Arthur Streeton

JANUARY entries

JANUARY Prize

JANUARY second prize - if more than 8 entries

Donated by Karen McLaughlin

December 2nd random draw prize

If more than 8 entries

NO WORD VERIFICATION please

Our Creative Team love to leave comments on each and every entry, so please make it easier for them to do so and remove WORD VERIFICATION for your comments. If you choose to use specialist galleries please be aware we may not be able to leave comments for you.

ARTastic is a challenge blog with a difference. We find inspiration in works of art.THE RULES - You don't need to be arty to play along with us - we accept traditional paper, digital, mixed media and off the page creations at any level. International entries are welcome. You may combine with other challenges. Please include our inspirational artwork and a link back to ARTastic on your entry and tell us how you were inspired by our artwork.